PCMCIA Device Requiring an Upper Memory Area May Fail

• Microsoft Windows 95

SYMPTOMS

The PCMCIA card device in your laptop computer may not initialize properly.

CAUSE

Some PCMCIA devices require an upper memory area mapped to the PCMCIA socket for data buffering. If this memory region is in use by the computer's BIOS or a built-in device, the PCMCIA device does not respond when the Windows 95 protected-mode socket driver tries to allocate the memory.

For example, if the computer's BIOS allocates memory for ROM shadowing in the upper memory area (UMA) and the socket driver tries to reallocate this memory, the PCMCIA device fails to initialize. A sample failure code for a PCMCIA network card experiencing this problem is "Problem 10."

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, reserve the region of memory that is already in use. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button, point to Settings, then click Control Panel.

2. Double-click the System icon.

3. Click the Device Manager tab, then double-click Computer.

4. Click the Reserve Resources tab, click the Memory option button, then click the Add button.

5. In the Start Value and End Value boxes, enter values for the start and end of the memory range you want to reserve.

6. Click OK.